


Something Wicca (This Way Comes)

by a_frayed_edge



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), BAMF Charlie Bradbury, BAMF Dean Winchester, Charmed Fusion, Charmed version of witchcraft, Detective!Dean Winchester, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Potions, Temporary Character Death, book of shadows, spells, witch!Charlie Bradbury, witch!castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 09:25:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14077836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_frayed_edge/pseuds/a_frayed_edge
Summary: Castiel was ten the first time he froze time.





	Something Wicca (This Way Comes)

He was ten the first time he froze time.

It was a cold winter. Spring thaw was coming in, but it was a slow one, the weather temperatures still well below anything comfortable. Kids were still adorning thick coats, wool gloves, hats with little pom poms on top, their noses still pink from the chill. The local frozen pond had closed for the season, but only a week prior, and the ice still gleamed, bright and temptuous.

Castiel stood at the foot of a snow covered bank and stared at the lake, weighing his options.

“What if it falls in,” he asked, turning to his friend.

The green eyes glittering back at him seemed to with widen with the mischief they reflected. “It’s not going to fall in,” the other child reassured. “We were skating on it last week. It takes longer than a week for ice to melt

Castiel threw another doubtful look at the lake. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Cas. Please?” He held up his pair of the ice skates they had both smuggled out of their prospective houses. “We brought skates and everything.”

Castiel breathed out heavily against his chapped red lips. His mom would be furious if she knew what they were about to attempt. She had always fretted about Castiel even being close to the pond after it closed. But she was gone, though, had been for almost an entire year now.

He nodded. “Okay. But. You go first.”

The delighted smile that spread across his friend’s face was as infectious as it was disarming, and Castiel found himself grinning back, excitement zinging through him. It was, after all, only one time. No one would have to know.

Dean flopped onto the nearby bench, and immediately began unlacing his boots and yanking them off, tossing them carelessly onto the snow. He wrinkled his brow as he tugged on his skates, then, once he was finished, he looked up at Castiel, who stood over him, not making any move to follow.

“You wanna watch me, first,” Dean asked gently. They had been friends for as long as either of them could remember, when Castiel’s family moved in next door to Dean’s. They had been practically raised together by four parents - well, now three. This meant that Dean knew better than to try to bully Castiel into anything he didn’t want to do. It only made him dig his heels in. Coaxing him into surrender was the only way.

Losing his mom the year before had changed him, Dean had noticed. Castiel seemed a lot younger than the two years that separated them, but Dean hadn’t cared, not really. Dean’s brother was younger than both of them, and Dean still considered him his best friend. Castiel just needed a little bit of extra protection, but Dean was almost a teenager and, as he had told his own mother when she asked about Castiel, plenty old enough to provide that protection.

Castiel licked his lips, then nodded, his eyes dropping to the ground in mortification. He hated that Dean always seemed to have courage to spare, while Castiel was constantly having to ignore his own terror. “Maybe.”

Dean gave him an encouraging smile. “Okay. Just watch me. Then you’ll know it’s safe.”

Without another word, Dean was plodding through the snow, balancing precariously on his skate blade until he hit the ice of the pond and he was able to glide gracefully forward. He did a couple of laps around the rink, waving to Castiel each time he passed him. Finally, he made his way to the center of the pond and called out.

“Come on, Cas! It’s fine! I swear!”

Castiel laughed. Dean was right. It was fine.

He began tugging his shoe laces free, to put on his own skates and follow his friend, when the most terrifying sound he had ever heard echoed through the air.

_Crack._

And then many things happened at once.

Castiel’s head spun to where Dean stood, staring at blankly at the ice that had betrayed him so thoroughly. He rose, to do what, he wasn’t sure. Try to rush to his friend’s aid, maybe. But Dean’s sharp command to “Stay where you are, Cas! Don’t come out here” stopped him in his tracks. The ice cracked again under Dean’s feet, and Castiel let out a shriek of fear as it started to crumble.

A image came unbidden into Castiel’s young mind. The memory of his mom, lying unmoving in the coffin, face pale and looking nothing like the mother Castiel remembered. His mom was full of life, smiles that never seemed to end, eyes always bright and clear. The sight of her lifeless body had almost killed him, and Dean, Dean had been there every step of the way. Every time he needed an ear to listen, someone to just sit with him without talking, someone to while hours away watching T.V., Dean was there with an understanding smile and no questions. Castiel knew, every inch of him knew, that if he lost Dean too, nothing could ever heal him.

“No, Dean!”

His hands shot out without his giving it any thought, and time seemed to halt in place. The surrounding park was suddenly still and silent. The ice under Dean’s feet fell no further. A cardinal that had been mid-flight hovered over Castiel’s head without flapping its wings. Castiel’s mouth fell open in bewilderment as he frantically looked around.

There was no cause, no explanation, none that made any kind of sense to him. He’d stopped believing in Santa Clause when he was six. God had turned out to be another lie delivered by parents - that became clear the day his mother died. In that moment, however, none of that mattered. All he could cared about was Dean’s unmoving form, and, taking a sharp breath, he raced as fast as his legs could carry him across the ice. He slipped as he got close to Dean and they collided together, Castiel’s momentum pushing them past the danger zone.

All of a sudden, the spell was broken. Dean was groaning where Castiel’s elbow was crushed against his ribs, and in the distance he could hear his twin sister Charlie calling his name, getting closer. Castiel extricated himself from Dean, mumbling an apology, but his mind was racing. What had happened? Was that the act of an outside force? Or . . . He glanced down at his hands. It couldn’t have been him. Right?

He looked up to find Dean’s eyes narrow and trained on him. “How did you do that,” Dean asked.

Castiel tensed. He didn’t want to lie to his friend, but something told him that he needed to keep this to himself. At least until he understood what had happened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how did you save me? You were on the bank.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

Dean blew out an irritated breath and then it was as though the fight just went out of him. He fell back against the snow, shaking his head. “Whatever. I don’t know how you did it, but, thanks.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay, Dean,” Castiel said.

“Me too.”

“Cas!”

Dean and Castiel looked up to see Charlie standing over them, her red hair whipping haphazardly in the wind, her face pale from the cold. She looked as though she had been running, and Castiel’s heart leapt in chest. What now? What else could possibly have happened?

She caught Castiel’s eye, and he stood. “Charlie? Are you okay?’

Charlie swallowed, then glanced at Dean. “I’m fine,” she said, but he knew he wasn’t mistaking the unnatural pitch he detected in her voice. “But, Dean, can Cas call you tomorrow? I need to talk to him alone. Family stuff.”

Dean, however, seemed none the wiser, and nodded. “Yeah, sure. You guys go ahead. I gotta change my shoes.”

Castiel took a step towards Charlie, then paused, turning back to look at Dean. He still couldn’t believe that that had happened, and that, most importantly, Dean was sitting there, healthy and whole.

Dean seemed to read his expression and gave a reassuring smile.”I’m fine Cas,” he said. “You saved the day. Somehow.”

“Cas,” Charlie repeated.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine.” He climbed up the bank, and as soon as he was within arm’s reach, her small hand clamped around his own, and dragged him forward. “Charlie, what? What’s wrong?”

Charlie didn’t speak a word the entire walk back to their house. Castiel spent the silence mulling over what had transpired with Dean, and no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t figure it out. Logic was something his brain knew how to puzzle out. He was good at doubting anything fanciful. But then there was this small part of him, this tiny voice that came from inside him, that whispered that this was right. Like finding something he hadn’t realized he was missing. The release of a binding, taking a fresh breath after being under water. But he couldn’t understand it. Magic wasn’t real.  

Charlie pushed the front door to the house open, and they stepped inside. The lights were off, other than the one to Charlie’s bedroom. Her open door spilled light down from the second floor.

For the first time, she turned to face him and the look she gave him sent chills up his spine. “Okay, um. I think I did something bad.”

“Something bad?” It could have been something small, like breaking a vase, or pocketing a dollar from the top of their dad’s dresser but Charlie looked far too affected for something like that. “What did you do?”

Charlie stared at his face for a beat, then took a steadying breath. In that moment he couldn’t help but think that his sister suddenly looked years older, instead of a few minutes younger. “I think I made myself magical.”

Castiel opened his mouth, but no words came. It couldn’t be true. It didn’t make any sense. HIs brain refused to compute.

Charlie, meanwhile, barreled on as if not expecting any response anyway. “I was playing with our old spirit board. Remember it? I had it out because . . . Well, because I was missing Mom, okay?”

Castiel nodded dumbly back. He understood that feeling very well himself, so he couldn’t blame her for it. Getting the board out had crossed his mind a couple of times as well.

“I asked it some stuff.” She blushed. “It doesn’t matter what. And there wasn’t any answer. And I was going to get up, And I looked down, and the - the - the pointer was on the letter ‘A.’ And I swear to you Castiel, I know, I know it sounds crazy, but I swear on your life and mine, a second later the pointer thing moved itself to the ‘T.’ And then away from it, then back. Then it went to the ‘I,’ then the ‘C.’”

“Attic,” Castiel whispered.

“Yes.” There were tears in Charlie’s eyes. “I don’t know if it was Mom or not. I don’t know. But I waited a minute to see if it said anything else. When it didn’t, I went upstairs, and the attic door was unlocked.”

“That door’s been locked for years.” Words finally came, though they were not at all what he was expecting to say. It was true, though. As long as he could remember, the door at the top of the third floor had been locked from the inside. Whenever they asked their parents about it, they would exchange a look before saying that they had never had the key.

“I know.” She sighed, and gazed up at the ceiling as though expecting answer there. “I can’t explain it, Cas. But the door was standing open. I was confused too, so I went to look. And there was all this stuff in there. Like a typewriter and old picture albums, and broken furniture. Just junk, I thought, at first. But then I saw this big black and gold chest.

“I opened it, in case you couldn’t tell where this story was going. And I found. Well, I found a book.”

“A book,” Castiel repeated.

“Yes, a book. It’s like this thick book, old, obviously. And it was full of spells and stuff. And I _may_ have read one.” She flinched. “Out loud.”

_“What?”_

“Okay, looking back, it wasn’t my smartest idea. But how was I supposed to know it would work?”

“Charlie, what did you think would happen when you read it? What did you think it would accomplish?” All of a sudden, things began making too much sense. If magic was such a thing, Charlie probably activated it, somehow, by reading from this book. Because apparently he could stop time now. So anything was possible.

She didn’t appeared to have so much as heard his question. Instead, she turned to squint at the bookcase. Castiel waited to see what would happen, if she was about to freeze time, herself.

That wasn’t what happened. A moment later, the entire row of books on the second shelf went flying across the room, slamming into the opposite wall. Castiel let out a cry. Charlie didn’t bother hiding a wide smile and snickered a bit. Off his glare, she crossed the room to gather the books. “I still haven’t really perfected it yet, you know. It’s a process.”

Castiel sighed. “I have something to tell you, too.”


End file.
